The Social Reuse of Illegal Asset and the Role of Social Economy in the Fight Against Criminal Organization: The Italian Case

Criminal organisations such as Mafia and Camorra are considered centralised and organised hierarchy with a division of labour, assignment of functions of its members observing formal internal rules. They build network between affiliates, politicians and individuals to rule in the territories. In fact they use social ties and network to construct a solid social consent which allows them to operate, uncontested, in the production of illegal wealth for their members. They are mostly diffused and particularly strong in territories where the level of social capital and the economic wealth is low. Mosca and Villani (2011) show that in order to break the vicious circle between the social and cultural impoverishment and the strengthening of an economy sustained by crime it is necessary to utilize the same determinants of the social consent used by criminal organisations. The social and economic development of the territories created by promoting initiatives that favour the accumulation of “pure” social capital such us those sustained by social economy can avoid criminal organizations to continue to gain the consent of a large part of the population living in the territories in which they operate. Starting front the idea that it takes a network to defeat a network (Arquilla J., Ronfeldt D., Zanini M., 1999), the paper studies the organisational structure of social enterprise and some clan belonging to the criminal organisation called camorra. The paper will benefit of the results of an survey conducted on a sample of social enterprises operating in Campania and of the final judgments of the Supreme Court concerning some criminal organizations belonging to camorra. The aim of the analysis consists to determine more effective tools of polices to fight crime based on the insights of the Social Network Analysis and the Physics of Formation and Evolution of Complex Networks that allow to look into the criminal organizations by means of studying the social relationships within a network. In particular the paper will analyse the structural features of criminal and social networks by using the concept of resilience, robustness and topological stability of networks. The paper – using a theoretical model based on the insights of the Social Network Analysis and the Physics of Formation and Evolution of Complex Networks – Intends to show that the seizure and the confiscation of the illegal acquired assets, and suitable policies aimed at promoting and supporting the development of social economy and non-profit organizations such us social enterprise, which assume an important role in the labor market, can have a direct impact on the individuals’ choices, reducing the incentive for illegal activity.